


Good Neighbors

by sahiya



Series: The Importance of Being Human in Cardiff [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Does Torchwood really think it's still a secret?, Domestic, Humor, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-23 00:13:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Delia Awbry's new neighbors are undeniably odd - but she rather likes them anyway. Especially that Ianto Jones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Neighbors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [genebec](https://archiveofourown.org/users/genebec/gifts).



> For my longtime beta Fuzzyboo, who has been wanting this fic for ages. Sorry it took so long; I hope it's worth the wait. Thanks to Yamx for beta reading!

It was a rare sunny morning in March when Delia Awbrey glanced out her window to see a lorry pull up to Number Eighty-six across the street. She was enjoying a cup of tea and a quiet house to herself while the boys were playing football in the park, and she watched curiously as three men climbed out of the lorry. One of them, dark-haired, handsome, and wearing a truly dramatic great coat, trotted up the front walk, a set of keys in his hand, whilst the other two opened the back of the lorry and started unloading boxes onto the pavement. Delia’s practiced eye identified the second dark haired man as very likely Welsh and the third, who had spiky hair, lighter than the others, as very much not. 

“My goodness,” she murmured, and reached for her mobile. “Meredith, look out your window,” she said when her neighbor answered. 

“What?” Meredith replied, a bit too loudly. Delia could hear her youngest screaming in the background. 

“Look out your window.”

“Why?”

“We have new neighbors.”

“Eighty-six?” Meredith said, and then, slightly muffled, “Jenna, go put your clothes on _right now_! Sorry,” she added. “Sorry. Well, it’s about time someone moved in. It’s no good for a house to stand empty. Just a tick.” There was a moment of silence as Delia waited patiently for Meredith’s inevitable reaction. Mr. Handsome, as Delia had already dubbed the first dark-haired one, had come back down the walk and was helping Mr. Welsh and Mr. Spikey-hair unload a sofa from the lorry. “Goodness.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Just the three of them so far? No sign of anyone else?”

“Not yet. I think the one with the great coat is the owner. He had the keys earlier.” That would be rather distracting, she thought. Not that she couldn’t use the distraction. Meredith was of the opinion that it was time for Delia to get out and start being distracted more often, but she never quite seemed to find the time.

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t say no to having any of them around the neighborhood,” Meredith said. “I quite fancy the other dark-haired one, myself.”

“That’s because he looks Welsh,” Delia teased.

“God bless Wales,” Meredith replied with a sigh. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t stand about gawking all morning. Text me if there are developments.”

“Of course,” Delia said, and hung up. There were things she needed to do as well, a week’s worth of laundry and the washing-up from breakfast, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep a close eye on things. After all, it was always good to know who your neighbors were. A matter of safety, really. 

_Right_ , Delia thought wryly, as Mr. Handsome came out for another box. _Of course. A matter of safety._

She kept an eye on Eighty-six for the rest of the day, even after the boys came home (covered in mud, of course). By the time she started making dinner, the lorry was gone. She hadn’t seen any of the men leave, but just as she was putting the lasagna in the oven, a car pulled into the driveway. It was almost dark, but she could just make out two women getting out of the car: one dark-haired and one blonde, both of them carrying what looked like sacks of takeaway. 

Meredith came over for a glass of wine after dinner. They settled at the kitchen table, with its view of the street - and, not coincidentally, of Number Eighty-six. The front room was lit up, but the blinds were down. “Anything interesting happen?” Meredith asked. 

Delia told her about the women who’d arrived earlier. “I reckon that one of them is the wife of the bloke with the keys,” she said, “and the other must be a friend of hers.”

“No children?”

“Not as far as I could see.”

“That’s a shame,” Meredith said. “The neighborhood could use a few more. Wait, look,” she added suddenly. Delia glanced up from pouring them both more wine and saw that the front door had opened. The two women emerged, followed by Mr. Handsome. He hugged them both and they made their way out to the car. Delia and Meredith watched as they drove away, and Mr. Handsome went back inside. 

“So,” Meredith said after a moment, “not his wife, then.”

“I guess not,” Delia said, aware of what was coming.

“You know, you should bake them some scones.”

“Meredith . . .”

“Your blueberry scones. It’d be very neighborly of you.”

“ _Meredith_.”

“I’m just saying, three blokes move into the house across the street? That’s a sign.”

Delia took a very long sip of wine before answering. “It’s not a sign.”

Meredith sighed. “Delia, it’s been a year.”

“It’s _only_ been a year,” Delia returned. “I’m not ready, Meredith. The boys aren’t ready, either.”

Meredith frowned at her. “They’re never going to be ready, and neither are you. No one ever said this would be easy, but Keith would hardly want you to be alone for the rest of your life. You need to remember how to talk to men, and you might as well practice on our incredibly handsome new neighbors.”

She had a point, Delia thought. “Well, I suppose it’s just scones.”

“Just so,” Meredith said, only a little smugly. “And I want all the details.”

The next day was Sunday. Delia rose early, with resolve, and made the scones before the boys had even started to stir. She felt a little foolish, but she supposed Meredith was right: it had been a year, and it was time to start dipping her toes in the water. It was what Keith would have wanted. 

At eleven, she left the boys in front of the telly with their own scones and took a container of them across the street. She knocked, then stepped back and waited. She heard footsteps coming closer, and then the door swung open to reveal Mr. Welsh, barefoot and wearing blue jeans and a black sweater. 

“Good morning!” she said, perhaps just a shade too brightly. “I’m Delia Awbry, your neighbor from across the street. I noticed you moving in yesterday, and I thought I’d bring you some scones to welcome you to the neighborhood.”

“Oh,” Mr. Welsh said, raising his eyebrows. “Thank you. I’m Ianto Jones. Would you like to come in for a few minutes?”

 _Ianto Jones._ Mr. Welsh, indeed. “If I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Just the endless unpacking,” Ianto said, stepping aside so she could come in. “As you can see,” he added with a gesture toward the pile of cartons in the foyer and lounge, “we haven’t got very far.” 

“IANTO!” someone shouted from upstairs. “WHO WAS AT THE DOOR?”

Ianto rolled his eyes. “Our new neighbor!” he called back. “Come say hello! I’m sorry,” he added to Delia. “Sometimes I think Jack was raised by wolves.”

Mr. Handsome came thundering down the stairs. “Captain Jack Harkness,” he said, thrusting his hand out toward her.

“Delia Awbry,” she managed, shaking it. If he’d been handsome from across the street, then close up, he was almost overwhelming. “Very pleased to meet you. You’re American?”

Captain Harkness smiled, and Delia felt her knees go a bit weak. “More or less. Mostly less. I was born abroad, but I’ve been in Cardiff for a long time now.”

“Where’s the Doctor?” Ianto asked Jack.

“Setting up the -” Jack hesitated briefly, glancing at Delia “- home theater system. Having a bit of trouble, but he’ll get there eventually. Best not to disturb him, I think.” A muffled _thump_ came from overhead, and Ianto cast a concerned glance upward.

“So it’s the three of you living here?” Delia asked. “The two of you and Doctor . . . ?”

“Smith,” Ianto supplied. “And yeah, it’s the three of us. Have you lived here long?”

“Five years or so. My husband and I bought the house when our second son started school.” She might have to sell it, eventually, and move somewhere smaller and more down-market, but Keith’s pension and a life insurance policy that he’d taken out without telling her were taking care of them for now. 

Ianto nodded. “Do you and your husband like the neighborhood?”

She hesitated, but her experience was that there was no good way to say it, and it was only awkward if people found out later on. “I do, and my boys do. I’m afraid my husband died about a year ago, so it’s just the three of us now.”

Ianto’s eyes widened slightly. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“It was a freak accident. He was down on the Plass, and there was some sort of gas explosion. Or so they said." Delia shrugged. "You know Cardiff.”

Jack and Ianto exchanged a glance, and Ianto rested a hand on Jack’s back - rather low, to Delia’s discerning eye. “Yes,” Jack said at last, in a heavy voice, “we do. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks. Well, I should go. Enjoy the scones.”

“I’m sure we will. Thank you,” Ianto said, showing her to the door.

Meredith was waiting for her when she returned, with a scone and a cup of tea in front of her. “Well?” she said.

“I met two of the three,” Delia said, taking her own scone from the plate on the counter and sitting down across from her. “But I think they’re gay.”

Meredith raised her eyebrows. “All of them?”

“Well, I don’t know about the one that I didn’t meet - Dr. Smith - but the other two seemed awfully . . . _intimate_.” She shrugged. “But very nice. Friendly. One of them - Captain Harkness - is a huge flirt, even if he is gay. Good for some harmless practice, like you said.”

“That’s the spirit,” Meredith said, smiling. “See? That didn’t hurt, did it?”

“No,” Delia admitted, and though Captain Harkness had made her a bit weak-kneed at the time, it was Ianto’s more reserved smile that she thought of now. “Not a bit.”

***

Delia kept an eye on Number Eighty-six for the next few weeks, but her new neighbors remained elusive. There was no sign of them for days at a time, but once, up in the middle of the night with a bout of insomnia, Delia saw their lights on. She sat in her bedroom window, heart lightened just by knowing that someone else was awake. Eventually, their light winked out, and she decided to give sleep another try. 

It was a week or so later that she was bringing some shopping in from her car when she glanced up at Eighty-six and saw smoke pouring out of an upstairs window. She dropped her shopping and dashed across the street, mobile in hand. She pounded on the door, and when no one answered, she went to stand right below the window. “Ianto?” she called up. “Captain Harkness?”

Someone poked their head out of the window. It was Mr. Spiky-hair - Dr. Smith, Captain Harkness had called him. “Hullo there!” he said, waving his arm to dissipate some of the smoke. 

“Uh, hi. Is everything all right?”

“Of course! Why do you ask?”

“Well, there’s quite a lot of smoke coming from your house,” Delia pointed out. 

“Oh, that. Don’t worry, just a minor mishap. Nothing’s actually on fire - well, technically - well, _theoretically_ technically, which - well, never mind that. I don’t believe we’ve met, have we?”

“We haven’t, no,” Delia said. “I’m Delia Awbry, your new -”

“ _Scones_!” he exclaimed. “You brought over scones, they were delicious, I remember now. Just a tick, I’ll be right down.” He disappeared from the window. Delia eyed it suspiciously, but the smoke did seem to be getting lighter. 

The front door opened. “Dr. John Smith,” a thin - positively _skinny_ \- man in a pinstripe suit and trainers said, rushing toward her with his hand held out. “I’m so glad to meet you, I was quite put out that I didn’t get to the morning you came over, but I was very busy with the, ah -” He pulled up short, eyes widening.

“Home theater system?” Delia supplied.

“ _Yes_ ,” he said, “exactly, the home theater system, very tricky. Still giving me fits, hence the smoke.”

Delia raised her eyebrows. “Goodness. What kind of system _is_ it?”

“My own invention, actually,” Dr. Smith said, sticking his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. “Not available on the market. I’m a bit of tinkerer.”

Delia smiled. “My husband was the same way. Drove me mad, but I do miss having someone around who’s willing to play with something until it works. I follow the instructions, and if that doesn’t get me where I need to go, I give up in disgust and make one of my boys do it.”

Dr. Smith scoffed. “Instructions! Instructions are only ever the manufacturer’s unimaginative _opinion_ of how something should be put together! No one ever did anything exciting by following the _instructions_!”

“Probably not,” Delia agreed wryly, “but most of the time I don’t really want to do anything exciting, I just want to be able to play a DVD with both audio and video. Anyway, since I’m here, I was wondering if you might have my container handy?”

“Oh, yes!” Dr. Smith said. “Ianto keeps talking about making cookies and filling it to take back to you, but I don’t know when that would happen - it’s been utterly mad lately, what with the - never mind - just a mo.” He darted into the house and came back with Delia’s container. “Here you are.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Well, I’m glad everything’s all right. Careful with the, er, home theater system.”

“Oh, I’m always careful,” Dr. Smith said, which Delia suspected was an outright lie. “I’ll see you soon, I’m sure. I know Ianto would like to invite you over for dinner, but we need to find a time when we’re all free and the home theater system is up and running. Or at the very least, not smoking.”

Delia smiled. “That sounds lovely. I look forward to it.” She waved goodbye and, with one last wary glance up at the window, went back across the street to gather up her spilled shopping. 

“A home theater system?” Meredith repeated, when Delia told her. “That catches fire?” 

“Doesn’t seem very likely, does it?” 

“Not really, no.” Meredith cast a suspicious glance across the street at the house. “I don’t know, Delia. I know I was the one to encourage you to get to know them, but what if they’re doing something dangerous over there?”

“Like what? I don’t think they’re making meth in the bath, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Meredith shrugged. “I don’t know _what_ I'm worried about, but I do know that home theater systems that smoke just aren’t normal. Do be careful, all right?”

“I will, I promise,” Delia said. She thought that the sensible thing to do would probably be to avoid her new neighbors altogether from then on. Meredith was right; there was just something not quite normal about them, and she should be concerned, for the boys if not for herself. But despite the smoke and a few distinctly _odd_ moments, they hadn’t seemed dangerous. They were, if nothing else, intriguing. She hadn’t had much in her life to be intrigued by for quite some time. 

Two days later, Ianto Jones showed up on her doorstep with a platter of cookies and an invitation to dinner, which he promised would be smoke-free. The dinner itself was delightful, even if Dr. Smith - or John, rather - had the tendency to ask rude, personal questions until Ianto kicked him under the table, and Jack had to leave halfway through because he got called into work. He was notably vague about what he did, but she supposed he might have the sort of military position where he couldn’t say much. 

She grew more and more certain, throughout the dinner, that the three of them were more than just close friends - though what they _were_ to each other was unclear. She was fairly certain she saw Ianto kiss Jack goodbye at the the door out of the corner of her eye when he left, but the way he and John teased each other reminded her so much of herself and Keith that it made her heart ache. 

“Thank you very much for dinner,” she said toward the end of the evening, after John had disappeared upstairs - the home theater system _still_ wasn’t quite right, he’d said, and it needed constant attention, lest it start to sulk. “You’re an excellent cook.”

“Thank you,” Ianto said, smiling and turning his coffee cup around in his hands. “I’m afraid I don’t get to exercise my skills very often. But I admit that I did have a bit of an ulterior motive in asking you over.”

“Oh?” she said, raising her eyebrows.

“I’ve been wanting to get some houseplants, but work is so unpredictable - I’m sure you’ve noticed that sometimes we’re not home for days. I was wondering if you might be willing to come in occasionally and water them for me. It wouldn’t be too often.”

“Of course,” Delia said. “That doesn’t sound like it would be much trouble. Do you all work together?” Did they _all_ have secretive military jobs? She suddenly wondered if she’d landed in some improbable Hollywood film, where a cadré of foreign spies moves into a completely normal suburban Welsh neighborhood. Except Ianto was simply too Welsh to be a foreign spy, so perhaps they were MI5?

Or perhaps she’d just overdone it a bit with the wine.

“Yes,” Ianto said, looking suddenly - to Delia’s eye - very bland. “Technically speaking, Jack’s my boss.”

“That must be difficult sometimes.” She’d loved Keith, but she could hardly imagine working with him for eight or ten hours a day, in addition to the time they’d spent together at home. And if he’d been her boss, she didn’t think either of them would have survived the first week. 

“Occasionally,” Ianto admitted, “but I’m the only one who can coax the coffee maker into behaving, so I can almost always get my way by threatening to switch the whole office over to instant.” Delia laughed. Ianto smiled, much less blandly. 

***

The first time Ianto asked her to water the plants, about a month after they had her to dinner, Delia took the opportunity to indulge her - very unseemly and entirely prurient - curiosity and venture upstairs. A quick look around the second floor revealed: one room that was clearly set up as an office-slash-guest room; an immaculate bathroom with an enormous tub (she eyed their whirlpool jets with envy); and a bedroom with a suspiciously large bed. The bedroom was the only room that was not blandly tasteful in its decor. The bedspread was dark blue and unremarkable, as was the walnut furniture, but there were photos on the walls - mostly of the three of them, but occasionally with the women Delia remembered from the night they had moved in. 

She paused in front of one photo in particular - a candid shot of the three of them on a tattered sofa somewhere. Ianto was sprawled across the sofa with his head in Jack’s lap, Jack’s fingers buried in his hair. John sat on Jack’s opposite side, leaning against him and smiling. There was no mistaking the intimacy between the three of them for anything but what it was: three people who were very much in love. 

Well, that solved that, then, didn’t it? Delia slipped out of the bedroom and wondered what she should think of her neighbors who were living in a three-way gay relationship. She thought that she should be indignant about it, but she couldn’t quite seem to find it in her. They weren’t normal, that was true, and even knowing what she did about them didn’t quite explain all the _other_ odd things that Delia had noticed, but . . . well, she’d seen their bath now and they clearly weren’t cooking meth in it, so they were probably harmless. 

Plus, she’d have to be dead from the neck down not to appreciate the _possibilities_. They were all so good-looking, it was hardly to be believed, and the three of them together - _intriguing_ , yes, that was the word. That was certainly the word.

There was one more door on the second floor. It was closed, and Delia would have passed right by it, but she decided at the last moment that she might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb and tried the handle. It was locked. She frowned, considered the layout of the house, and realized it was the room with the “home theater system.”

“Well, that is a bit unsettling,” she said aloud. She knew what Meredith would have to say about it, if she decided to tell her. _There are worse things than meth. God only knows what they’re doing in that room!_ But Delia still had houseplants to see to, and frankly, she shouldn’t have been sneaking around upstairs to begin with. She wiped her hands on her jeans and went downstairs to finish the watering. 

In the end, she didn’t say anything to Meredith about the locked room or the suspiciously large bed. Some things just weren’t worth mentioning, Delia thought. And other things weren’t anyone’s business. 

Over the next several months, Ianto texted or called Delia a handful of times to ask her to look in on his houseplants. Each time she went over, she kept to the ground floor and didn’t find any other signs that her neighbors weren’t what they claimed to be. 

What she did start to notice after a while was that the timing of their absences was . . . remarkable. They always seemed to happen right as Cardiff suffered yet another gas line explosion or strange outbreak of food poisoning or, most recently, a “solar flare” that briefly evaporated all the water in the bay. Delia was neither gullible enough nor desperate enough to believe everything she was told by a politician wearing a fancy suit, and she hadn’t been since Keith had died. One heard things in Cardiff, and if one was not engaged in a project of determinedly willful ignorance, one eventually started to take them seriously.

Delia’s suspicions were confirmed late one night, two days after Ianto had asked her to look in on his plants for the fifth or sixth time. She was sitting at her kitchen table with a cup of herbal tea, enjoying the quiet house before going to bed, when she saw a large, black vehicle pull into the driveway of Eighty-six. It was dark, but not so dark that she couldn’t make out the lettering across the side. 

_TORCHWOOD_

It wasn’t much of a surprise by then. Delia switched off the dim kitchen light and stood at the window, watching as a Jack-shaped shadow jumped out of the driver’s seat and came around the back. He opened the door to the back of the SUV and helped someone out. The person was too short and not quite painfully thin enough to be John. It had to be Ianto, and he was clearly injured. Jack pulled his arm across his shoulders and helped him to the front door. Delia stood watching at the window until she saw an upstairs light switch on.

There wasn’t much she could do at this hour, Delia decided, and Jack seemed to have the situation under control. She went to bed, but it was some time before she slept. 

The next morning, she’d just got the boys off to school when someone knocked at her door. She answered it and found, rather to her surprise, Jack Harkness standing before her. 

“Good morning,” he said, with a smile that was barely a ghost of his usual. Delia didn’t think she’d ever seen him looking less than perfect, but at the moment he looked _tired_. 

“Good morning,” she said, drying her hands on the dish towel she’d been holding when he’d knocked. “Is everything all right?” She glanced past him and saw that the SUV from the night before was gone, replaced by the small blue sedan Ianto usually drove.

“Not really,” he said, dropping the smile in favor of a grimace. “It could be worse, I suppose - it could always be worse - but . . .” He sighed. “I need to ask you a favor.”

Delia pursed her lips. “This isn’t about Ianto’s plants, is it?”

“No,” Jack said, frowning slightly. “Ianto was . . . injured yesterday. On the job. Nothing too serious, but he has a concussion, a few cracked ribs, and a sprained knee, so he’s not getting around very well today.”

“I should think not,” Delia said, raising her eyebrows. “What happened?”

“He . . . fell,” Jack said, rather lamely. “In any case, the Doctor - John, I mean - and I both need to be at work today, but I’d really rather not leave Ianto alone. I was wondering if you might be able to look after him, or at least look in on him.” 

“Of course,” Delia said instantly. “But are you sure he shouldn’t be in hospital?”

Jack shook his head. “He’s seen a doctor. He just needs rest.”

Delia nodded. “Well, I’m happy to do it.”

“Great, thank you,” Jack said, looking very grateful indeed. “I’m afraid I have to get back to work, but just let yourself in - I told Ianto I was going to ask you to come over. Which, in the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you he wasn’t thrilled about. He’s a terrible patient, particularly for me - he might behave himself better for you.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Delia said. “I’ll be right over.”

By the time she’d put her shoes on, written a note to the boys, and grabbed her most recent knitting project, Ianto’s car was gone. She let herself into their house using her key. “Ianto?” she called up the stairs. 

“Yeah,” he said, sounding resigned, not to mention exhausted. She went upstairs and knocked on the cracked-open bedroom door before pushing it open. Ianto lay on top of the covers, his sprained knee propped up on a pillow with an ice pack. He had a black eye and a bandage tapped over half his forehead. Of the cracked ribs, there was no external evidence, but Delia knew from personal experience that they were probably the most excruciating of all. 

“Bloody hell,” she said, surveying him.

Ianto cracked a smile. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Jack’s being a drama queen, as usual, and I’m sure you had plans for today. Now that you’ve fulfilled whatever agreement he strong-armed you into, please don’t feel obliged to stay and play nursemaid.”

Delia sat down on the edge of the bed. “First of all, I don’t believe you that it’s not as bad as it looks. Jack doesn’t strike me as the type to overstate this sort of thing. Besides, I didn’t have much planned, and he didn’t strong-arm me at all.”

“You might not have even realized he was strong-arming you,” Ianto said. “He’s very persuasive.”

“I’m sure he is, but he didn’t have to say much to persuade me, other than listing off your injuries. How’s your head?”

“Aching,” Ianto admitted.

“Your ribs?”

“Worse than my head.”

“And your knee?”

“Not as painful as either of the others, but more inconvenient.”

“That settles it, then.” Delia patted his uninjured knee. “I’m staying.”

To her relief, Ianto didn’t argue further. Delia suspected that for all his resistance, he really wasn’t feeling himself and didn’t mind the company or the help. There was no TV in the bedroom, but she helped him set his laptop up where they could both see it, he from the bed and she from the bedside armchair, and they put on _The Philadelphia Story._ He dozed sporadically, whilst she knitted her way through half of the blanket she was making for her cousin’s new baby. When the film ended around lunchtime, she made sandwiches and heated up the chicken soup that Jack had left defrosting in the fridge, then made Ianto take a pain pill. He claimed not to need it, but the way he’d gone white around the lips said otherwise. 

After lunch, Ianto’s mobile rang. Delia could tell from his voice when he answered that it was either Jack or John, so she went downstairs to do the washing up and give him some privacy. When she returned, Ianto was lying back against his pillows, his mobile in one hand, simply staring out the window. 

“Everything all right?” Delia asked, as she seated herself by the bed.

“Yeah,” Ianto said, blearily. “Everything’s fine. Crisis averted. The Doctor said he’d be home by six, so you don’t have to worry about staying.”

Delia nodded, struck by something she’d noticed before. “You and Jack both do that when you’re distracted,” she observed, mildly. “You call John ‘the Doctor’.”

“Oh,” Ianto said, blinking at her. “Yeah. We do, I guess.” He was silent for a few seconds, and then sighed. “Would you believe me if I said it was what we used to call him at school?”

Delia pursed her lips. “Not really.”

“I didn’t think so.” Ianto looked at her, and though the painkillers had clearly kicked in, the gaze he leveled at her was sharp. “You know, don’t you?”

Delia raised an eyebrow at him. “Which part? That you and Jack and John are clearly all in love with each other, or that you all work for Torchwood?”

Ianto swallowed. “Either. How long have you known?”

Delia decided it simply wouldn’t be kind to tease him just now, with the state he was in. “I suspected the former the night I first came over for dinner. The latter took me a bit longer. I thought you might all be military at first. But last night I was awake when Jack brought you home.”

“In the SUV, right. I keep telling Jack that secret organizations shouldn’t have their names emblazoned across their main mode of transportation, but he never listens.” Delia simply raised her eyebrows at him. He sighed. “I’m sorry for the deception. We were trying to stay under the radar. Has anyone else put it together?”

Delia shook her head. “I don’t think so, though since that incident with the smoke, Meredith thinks you might all be meth-heads. Speaking of which, I suppose the home theater system isn’t really a home theater system.”

“Not as such, no,” Ianto admitted. “It’s a system for monitoring a rift in space and time remotely, so that none of us actually has to live at Torchwood anymore. For what it’s worth, I think the Doctor finally worked all the kinks out, so we’re not in danger of burning the house down. Anymore. But you haven’t said anything to anyone else, then? Not your kids or Meredith or -”

“No,” Delia said, firmly. “And none of them will probably ever figure it out. I wouldn’t have, except I started paying a lot more attention to all the strange things that go on in Cardiff after Keith died.” She looked away, studying the stitching on the bedspread, wondering if she dared to ask. “He didn’t die in a gas explosion, did he? I’ve always known he didn’t, but you’re probably one of the only people who could actually tell me the truth.”

“He didn’t,” Ianto said. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “It’s not your fault.”

Ianto sighed. “I’m grateful you see it that way. Others wouldn’t. Others would say that every death that Torchwood doesn’t prevent is our fault. Jack would probably say that, if you pressed him, though he’s pretty selfish about the blame. He’d say it was _his_ fault, specifically.”

Delia frowned. “I guess that’s explains why he’s always been a bit more reserved with me than you and John.”

Ianto nodded. “Jack is . . . older than he looks. He’s suffered a lot, seen a lot of other people suffer. He carries a lot of guilt around with him.”

“I don’t suppose you might know . . .” Delia hesitated. “Keith had a life insurance policy I didn’t know about. It was a shock at the time, but it’s let me stay home with the boys, it’s let us stay in the house. But it never made sense to me. He wasn’t the type to make that sort of decision without talking it over with me first.”

Ianto looked thoughtful. “I can’t say for sure, but I’ve suspected for some time that there might be a fund for the families of people who die in Torchwood incidents. I’m not sure who manages it, because it isn’t any of us, but somehow, when something happens, Jack has a way of finding out who the person was, who survived them, and what they need. I think he’s particularly generous when there are children involved.” He glanced at her sharply. “Jack doesn’t know I know about it. Please don’t say anything to him.”

“I won’t,” she said. “I don’t imagine he and I will ever talk about any of this.”

“Probably not.” Ianto was silent for a long moment. “Delia,” he said, and then stopped again. “Torchwood has ways of making people forget. Regulations dictate that I make you forget now. But I’m going to give you a choice instead. I think you’ve earned that from us. What do you want me to do?”

Delia didn’t answer immediately. She supposed she could understand why they made people forget, and most people were probably just as glad to. But it wasn’t as though the realization that there was something spooky going on in Cardiff had come over her in a single day, or even just since Ianto and the others had moved in. She’d known for years now. And while it very well might be easier to forget, to go on with her life as ignorant as she was before that day a year and a half ago, she didn’t think it would be _safer._ She wasn’t sure what safe was anymore, but ignorance wouldn’t help. 

“I’d rather you didn’t,” she said, at last, “if I really have the choice.”

Ianto let out his breath. “Okay, then. Delia Awbry,” he said, offering her his hand, “welcome to the Torchwood Civilians Club. It’s very exclusive.”

Delia gave him half a smile. “Who else is in it?”

“A few of the local police officers and my co-worker Gwen’s husband, Rhys. Rhys wants to start having meetings, create a secret handshake, maybe all make tin hats together.”

Delia laughed. “I think I’ll pass on the tin hats.”

“They don’t really fit your aesthetic,” Ianto agreed with a smile.

The rest of the afternoon passed quietly. Both of the boys checked in after school, to let her know that they were going to the park to play football. She kept Ianto company watching _Downton Abbey_ repeats and bringing him the occasional pain pill or cup of tea until John came home, just after six. 

Delia listened to him trudge up the stairs at roughly a quarter of the speed she’d come to expect from him. When he came in, he looked almost as battered as Ianto - his suit dirty and bedraggled, a cut over one eye that looked like it’d been bandaged hastily, and, perhaps most alarmingly, his hair flat and rather limp. “Hey,” Ianto said, looking up at him. “Everything all right?”

“Yeah,” he said, trying to loosen his tie and toe off his trainers at the same time and almost falling on his face in the process. “Just tired. Hi, Delia. Thanks for looking after Ianto today.”

“It was no trouble at all,” Delia said, even as she wondered if she really ought to leave the two of them alone. John finally managed to get his tie off and then collapsed across the bed, narrowly missing Ianto’s injured knee, ending up with his head resting against Ianto’s hip. His eyes closed. 

“Is he asleep?” Delia whispered after a moment or two. 

Ianto rested his hand on John’s head. “Or close enough. We’re okay,” he added. “I’ll let him rest for an hour or two, and then I’ll order a pizza and wake him up.”

“I could stay.”

Ianto shook his head. “You’ve done more than enough for one day, Delia. Go home.”

She nodded. There was a pitcher of water and a box of biscuits by the bed, so she supposed neither of them would perish of hunger or thirst in the next couple of hours. “Okay. I’ll look in on you tomorrow.”

Ianto smiled. “I think the Doctor will probably be home with me - maybe even Jack if we’re lucky - but I’d like that. And thank you for today.”

“It was nothing,” she said, and paused in the doorway, not quite looking back at him. She wasn’t sure anything they’d spoken about today would ever come up again, and she didn’t want to miss this opportunity. “Thank _you_ for - for everything you do. I can only imagine.”

She left before he could reply and went home to see her boys. 

_Fin._


End file.
